


Why Seadwellers Don’t Dwell in the Tropics

by RainofLittleFishes



Series: Every Crook and Granny - Unrelated Seadweller Reproduction & Junk [6]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aradia Trolls Eridan, Everyone Is Alive, F/F, F/M, Fish, Headcanon, Kink Meme, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multi, No one actually gets it on but, Now we're at the stage when Aradia just rates everyone, Oviparous Trolls, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Sea Trolls, Spawning Season, That is How a Megido Do, This is how a Megido Do, Troll Reproduction (Homestuck), Xeno speculation, Yet Another Postulation Regarding Troll Reproduction, grub speculation in comments, literal use of the word pratfall, mostly just talking, they got it on and we missed it, trollpreg, yes i'd like to invest in grub speculation? what does that hedge against?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-09-25 06:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9806750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainofLittleFishes/pseuds/RainofLittleFishes
Summary: Kink Meme Prompt! Environmental ~Spawning~ Triggers.(Yet Another Weird Seadweller Reproduction Fic)also:Why You Should Feed Psionic Frenemies Because Low Blood Sugar May Result in a Thirst for Blood...now with 100% more prawn commentary





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cthchewy (pyrrhic_victoly)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhic_victoly/gifts), [Bobsled_Hostage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobsled_Hostage/gifts).



> [Kink Meme Shopping List](http://homesmut.dreamwidth.org/40248.html?thread=46844984#cmt46844984)
> 
> Bubble Nests!!! – not found. Alas.  
> Shark-like claspers – Probably off getting jiggy with someone, not found.  
> Fuckin’ anglerfish – way too scary, off in space with HIC and the suffering Helmsman  
> Mouthbrooding/Gastric Brooding – Most literal interpretation of Cronus Ampora’s appellation to date. Not found.  
> Grunion Run – completed, recommended pairing: sandwich and a tissue.  
> Spawning triggers – activated! Enclosed.

**CountAmphibious [CA] has messaged you.**

CA: Aradia? Just wwhat period did you take 23.831832, -75.107689 from?

CA: …

CA: ‘Radia?

It takes you a moment to reply because Eridan’s post-Game screenname still makes you laugh, an almost universal reaction among the Game survivors. He gave all of you a very stern lecture on the history of formidable amphibious assaults against native peoples across the galaxy (all dead now), but all you can think of is: ribbit.

AA: Hold your skyhorses, princess, I remember all the what and when, I have to cross reference for the where.

AA: It’s pre-Connie 4,000 sweeps give or take. Why?

CA: Just, I think I figured something out. Wwant to run it past someone. In person.

AA: Why me?

CA: Wwho else cares about all this historical flotsam?

He signs off before you can reply and you don’t need to see him to know he’s nursing hurt feelings again. Touchy. Someone needs a pile or pail. Unfortunately, (oh, fine, _predictably_ ) no one finds that personality an acceptable loss for access to that rocking bod.

It’s still early in the night and the flight’s only a few hours at top speed so you leave an auto message on your chat client and head out.

It’s not like you’re hung up on the fact that he called your very carefully extracted and curated collection of ancient ruins _flotsam_. You’re not _Dave_. You chose useful and beautiful and weird bits of Alternia. Dave refused to bring anything that hadn’t been featured in a meme.

You worry about Dave sometimes. As hard as he advertises his pale availability, no one seems to take him seriously enough to pap him when he really, really needs it.  

*

23.831832, -75.107689 is a tropical island. The wind of flying against your psionic shields kept you cool, at some altitudes too cool if you didn’t focus, but now that you’ve landed on a broad flat square paved in stone, the roof of what was probably a bathhouse, you loosen your jacket, then just remove it and tuck it in a crevice out of the wind.

The bathhouse is a quarter of the way up the hilly terrain, close enough to the ocean for a good view, far enough away that it sounds like wind and not surf, and should be secure even when Tavros and John release the rest of the winds they’ve been winding. You really did do a fabulous job rooting it here, especially with all the internal plumbing, and, company aside, could envision spending time taking in the view more often were it not for all your current duties. Also, with everyone on Alternia either dead or here on Afterus, it’s not like anyone’s going to miss it.

Eridan untucks himself from his own crevice and awkwardly waves at you and wanders closer. He looks different from usual, not just the absent scarf. There’s something lax in his face, a weird, _serenity_ is the wrong word, but he’s definitely missing some of his usual _the-world-conspires-Imma-gonna-get-the-jump-on-it-first_ sneer.

You wait and he ambles to a stop and shifts from foot to foot, classic pale enticement awkwardness, inferior-to-superior request, complete with slightly cocked chin tuck that draws the eye to bare neck and gills. You just flew three hours and are ravenously hungry and thirsty. If this was all a pretense to solicit you? You may just eat him. Karkat would mope, Kanaya would regret the loss of his alleles, but no one would fault you. Sollux would wonder why it took you so long.

“Well?” you, very politely, and _not at all annoyed_ , prompt.

“Umm.”

“So help me, if you’re soliciting me…” You remember that you have an apple in your pack but you’re busy pinning his gaze, superior-to-inferior, and rummaging through your pack would disrupt your threat.

“No!

“No. It’s just. Really embarrassing.”

“Oh. Okay. Let’s hear it!” You relax a bit, and get your apple out.

“Thanks for the support.” He grumbles, shoulders humping up, and doesn’t continue.

“Not your diamond, whine at someone else.” You crunch into your apple and manage to simultaneously make it clear that you are both watching him dubiously and find the apple more worthy of your attention. This is a helpful expression that you learned from Tavros, sass-monster extraordinaire and quite possible the only troll besides Karkat to never fantasize about doing something horrible to Eridan. No wait, Karkat would have fantasized, out loud, or in chat, he just wouldn’t have meant it. You really, really hope that Tavros’s common sense will somehow prevail in the upcoming genetic races, that is, in the unlikely event that the likely dud matriorb ever hatches…

“Really not helpful,” mutters the striped tuff of hair between broad hunched shoulders.

“Well?”

“It’s _embarrassing_.” He hisses, looking up at you for a moment, and then fingers his throat and puts his hand and head quickly back down, like he meant to stroke his scarf and forgot he wasn’t wearing it because between every breeze is a blanket of humid heat somewhere between smothering and soporific.

“Okay. What kind of embarrassing? Wardrobe malfunction? Public refusal from your flush crush? Falling on your own weapon?” You finish your apple and decide that maybe Eridan can live a while longer, since he is somewhat entertaining and may know where there’s more food to be had. Three hours high speed flight needs more than an apple. You usually packed for FLARP with Tavros, who definitely would have contested your interpretation of caloric need.

“No! And jeeze, where did all those come from? You don’t have to fuckin’ _chirp_ ‘em. Are those all things you’re hoping will happen to me? Tone it down, Megido.”

“Oh, poo,” you skip forward and give him a little jostle with your elbow. He rubs at his gills where you whomped him one. You smile and wave an elbow to remind him to get on with it.

“So. You know how seadwellers only take cold showers?”

“Yup. Cause you’re all delicate anemones and hated the thought of anyone warmer ever having an enjoyable shower. Party poopers.”

“No. there’s another part to it. Seadwellers weren’t allowed in the tropics, right? Warm water makes us slower, less aggressive...” He trails off, hunches, turns, and starts down the stairs.

“And?”

He mumbles something, still turned away, and hurries down the stairs. You follow. The stairs switch back and then you’re under the shade of a roof above. Your eyes adjust more slowly than your psionics so by the time you can see the color of the water below, you already know the depths and where the walls and stairs are.

“Sorry, didn’t hear that. Should I just ask Feferi?”

He turns back.

“No! I said, it puts us in tha mood!” He flushes violet and looks down at the great circular baths below, as if that many shades of blue and teal is enormously consuming and he can’t possibly think of anything else.

“What mood?” You’re pretty sure you know, and this is _hilarious_!

“Concupiscent! _It triggers spawning behaviors_. Gods, Megido, do you have to be that deliberately obtuse?” He glares at you and this time you have the triple win of hunch, flush, and absent-scarf-grab. Score.

“Okay, so you’re not asking me to draw you a warm bath, right?”

“No!”

“But…?” You prompt, when he just stands there flushing. His pupils are dilated and either react slower than yours, or have another reason to be so far open. You’re leaning for option two as seadwellers generally have excellent night sight.

“But this might be the solution to the population issue. We don’t have a mothergrub, the matriorb might never hatch, but we didn’t evolve with one anyway. Landtrolls are a mutation.”

“Excuse me?!” You let your psionics settle on him so that he’s suddenly standing against three gees and not one. He staggers, sets his feet and forces himself straight enough to glare up at you. Three gees forced him down a step and he was already three steps down in front of you. He’s taller than you, wider, unfairly fit for such a prissy beast, and from this vantage he doesn’t quite come level with your chin. Rocking bod, terrible personality. It’s a bad idea to be enjoying this as much as you are.

“Mutation, evolution, whatevva. Seatrolls came first, right? That’s not gonna get me wwhomped with the fucking political correctness wwand, now is it?”

“Okay.” You let up a bit. Two gees is a nice even number, just ask your Honey.

“Seadwwelling is dominant.”

“You’re on thin ice.” You narrow your eyes and think _fish pancakes_ , and let him read it in your face.

“Not seadwellers! The seadwelling alleles are dominant to the landdwelling ones. Blood hue’s a bunch of genes, but you’re either a seadweller or you ain’t.” You don’t exactly agree, there’s plenty of in-betweeners among indigos. You’ll let it pass. For now.

“Okay, _and_?”

“Violets aren’t the only seadwellers.”

“Feferi isn’t violet.”

He huffs, and actually waves his arms at the next part, rings glinting when they pass through the thin shafts of light that stab through the cavern from thin glassless windows.

“Violets _and tyrians_ ain’t the only seadwellers, but the other colors got culled if they came out finned or gilled, okay? _Seadwelling_ is dominant to landdwelling. You’ve got two recessive landdwelling alleles, homozygous. I’ve got one or two seadwelling alleles, either heterozygous or homozygous.”

“If you’re trying to get in my skirts, appealing by way of an unknown, possibly hypothetical landdwelling ancestor really isn’t upping your chances.”

“Let me spell it out, Megido. Seadwellers spawn if we get caught too long in warm water. Without a mothergrub. The grubs aren’t necessarily all seadwellers, and they aren’t necessarily all the first generation’s blood colors.

“We can’t avoid a bottleneck if we don’t get cracking, but it’s better than…” He stops, and you don’t think he could go more violet but he _does_. This. Is. Hilarious.

You let him up.

“So you want me to knock you up?” All your years of FLARP have culminated in a being able to say that cheerfully, _helpfully_ , like you’re really just offering and not like you’re choking back laughter. His face does all sorts of entertaining things.

“No! I want someone else to review this place and its funky plumbing and tell me if I’m, what’s that quaint landdweller phrase, _all wet_ regarding its use as a grub nursery.”

You push him back over the stairs and listen for the splash. What’s with the lack of railings? Probably some ancient ancestor felt what you’re feeling right now toward another annoying seadweller and had the foresight to enable this magnificent pratfall.

He surfaces, mad as a wet cluckbeast, or attempting it, head slowly sinking lower as his furious motions quiet into sulky treading.

“Dammit, Megido, wwhat was that for?”

“You’re all wet,” you tell him, “but I’ll take a look.”

He looks doubly mad that he can’t stay mad.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who wanted some prawn with their spawn, [ Bobsled_Hostage](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bobsled_Hostage/pseuds/Bobsled_Hostage) has come though for you with a chapter start that got Aradia's running commentary going. 
> 
> Thank you to Bobsled_Hostage!

Bobsled_Hostage contributed the impetus to this chapter with the following prompt/continuation: 

“Anyone wwana remind me wwhat the point of all this is again?”

‘All this’ being Eridan, naked on his back in a shallow pool of gently steaming water, hands chained above his head. You give him a tiny zap, prelude to a bigger one if he doesn’t stop whining and pay attention.

“It’s the scenario everybody agreed on." He squirms. "You’re the fish we caught, and we’re not taking any chances while we get a taste.”

He glares up at you, then quickly looks away, hunching his shoulders and bending his knees inward as far as he can around the spreader-bar. Frantically signaling vulnerability as clearly as possible. Like it will stop anyone from hurting him. You don’t know if you can help it, the way his fins are fluttering, just begging someone to bite them.

“I don’t see wwhy I gotta be chained up if Fef don’t.”

“Because I’m already supposed to be b-roe-ken in, sea-lly!”

Feferi tousles his hair. The water’s not even blood warm (not for you, at least), but he tilts his head, craving her fingers on his face. She snatches her hand back, giggling.

Dejected, he turns back to you, still not meeting your gaze.

“...you can go first, if you wwanna.”

“What?”

You heard him just fine, despite his mumbling and blushing. You want him to say it loud enough for the whole room to hear.

“I said you can go first, Ara, get your fuckin’ floppy ears checked, coddamn-”

The air sparks with psionics. The towel around your waist falls to the floor. He sputters something, cringing but finally looking up at you.

You pounce.

*

(And we now return to our normal scheduling. Please enjoy another episode of  _Aradia Is Judging You_.)

*

“Eight out of ten”, you allow, hours later. Feferi laughs from where she’s curled up on the ledge above the shallow spawning pool in a nest of towels, an exhausted Karkat sleeping, evidently soundly, seed-puff frizzy crown of hair pressed into the underside of her rumblespheres. 9/10 for Karkat, once he got past the initial awkwardness he was very enthusiastic… and seems to be more vulnerable to seadweller pheromones than anyone else, not that you’re objecting to more warm contributions.

You haven’t spent that much time with Feferi before but you think this is not the only circumstance in which you will have to be in cahoots. She’s funny and also gave you crash course in seadweller so you could fuck Eridan up only as much as you intended and not to the point of permanent damage.

A full five seconds elapse before Eridan reacts to your rating.

“Wwait, wwhaaa?!”

Water, water everywhere and you don’t think he drank any of it. Yeah, so he maybe he is dehydrated. And the water is positively swimming in eggs and slurry so maybe not a very good option for rehydration. Even fuck-drunk and muzzy he sounds so hilariously offended you want to put your teeth back into the bruises blooming on his earfins and tug until cartilage resists, but he’s probably had enough. You might have been more pitch than flush but you don’t actually want to foster a new race by feeding your spawn with his body. You still want to set your teeth until they meet and hang baubles in the bloody holes.

“Okay, maybe a seven,” you amend, because dissing Vriska is never a wasted opportunity, regardless of her relative presence or absence. Troll Schrödinger’s Vriska. You hope her ears are burning all the way up to her stupid spider tattoos.

You run a little current up his leg and higher and he thrashes again, but there are no fresh blooms in the water, out of eggs and slurry both, and sodden with more than water. The spreader bar is long since gone, as are the cuffs and most of the other participants. You definitely caught Feferi, designated referee to make sure no one actually died, sleeping more than once, not that Eridan seems to have noticed.

You haul him out of the pool psionically and only shake him when he thrashes because you were all kinds of supportive and didn’t just heft him from under his armpits, not that he’s grateful or anything.

“Chill, you pill. You don’t want to kill any of them after all that work do you?” He stills with a tired huff and you rotate him, plucking off a few hitchhiking eggs, returning them to the pool to grow, or die, with their fellow swathes of rainbow. Eridan’s hair is a slimy brown yellow from where Sollux decided fertilizing eggs was not quite as important as messing up Eridan’s ridiculous coif. Not that there was much to mess up, Kanaya banned all hair and body products for the last day cycle before this all started. She also contributed via pail well out of seadweller pheromone range and went back to the lab to see how fast she can accelerate lusii production with Jade. Evidently you’re all crazy for wanting to spawn already but if you’re going to be stupid there’s no reason to poison their permeable membranes before they can hatch.

Kanaya is probably the sole voice of reason in your new world, but she’s also kind of a fuddy-duddy. She has a point, you’re not disputing that, but there’s no reason to skip out on _group socialization activities_. 

Vriska had declined to forgo her Troll Old Spice and had instead shown up with a full bucket and a margarita and spent the ten minutes after she dumped her contribution in the pool catcalling an awkward Equius and desperate Eridan while licking the salted rim of her drink more suggestively than necessary considering that she didn’t seem interested in joining Eridan and Feferi in the pool. Equius retreated in embarrassment, returning only to leave another two toned bucket of blue slurry. After that, it was your duty as well as privilege to make sure everyone willing had contributed because fuck this if you want all the first generation to be blues and colder.

Almost as good as working Eridan up or making Feferi laugh while you move with each other? Watching Tavros’s brawny shoulders as the three of them made waves. It does not surprise you _in the least_ that Tavros is a good flush lover.

Karkat on the other horn, did _not_ look prepared. If the warm waters, perhaps more than _slightly_ further warmed by the application of careful psionics, hadn’t been signaling the two seadwellers to be pumping out _come hither_ pheromones, you don’t think even restrained and ~~hopeless~~ helpless Eridan would have been enough to overcome the awkwardness. But pheromones came through for you, as did everyone else. You did not expect Gamzee’s butt to flex quite like that, but you don’t regret the view. There has never been a time more apt for the expression of “love to see them go, love to see them walk away”. Banning body products resulted in one very shy faced clown and some very enthusiastic trills that demonstrated some very interesting cavern acoustics. You would have fanned yourself, but you’re _supposed_ to be warm-blooded.

And to be honest, Terezi and Nepeta were hotter. 10/10, would rolepurrlay catch of the day aka _carpe diem_ again. Eridan was found guilty of all charges and sentenced thoroughly.

You dunk Eridan in another pool, one of many which may one day host your spawn as they grow out of one pool, and you swish him around a bit to get the slurry off. He surfaces, bitching as much as usual to non-spawning Eridan, if half-heartedly due to sheer exhaustion, and you soften enough to dunk him by hand and scrub through his ridiculous stripy hair until it’s black and purple again instead of just slimy. You work at a particularly stubborn patch behind his earfin and he starts to slump so that you prop him back up with psionics. You don’t notice immediately that he’s purring at you, eyes closed, like he doesn’t even notice. Stupid seadweller pheromones, you catch yourself purring back.

You dunk him again so that he sputters and haul him out to dump him against Feferi’s back. If she’s going to hoard all the towels she can share her ridiculous nest. He curls up, eyes closed, a faint whine audible with every exhale. Okay, so he just spent seven hours playing Dawn of the New Troll Age: The Fuckening but he also absolutely insisted he could, would, wanted to, and that you were all stamina-less wastes of gill-less space _so he deserves every ache_. But you’re not a monster so you get him a cup of water, painkillers, and, with some very careful psionics you even make ice from one of the far pools. He yelps when you dump a slushpile between his legs but when you snatch it back he finds two seconds more of ridiculous seadweller strength to try to wrestle it back. You drop it back on his crotch and scoot half a fistful up his nook getting a whistle gasp from Eridan and a turn from Feferi.

“I was sleeping, you chum buckets.” Which is a flat out lie. No one ever expects her filthy mouth, especially when she says such things in such a pleasant manner. The things she called Eridan? Not expected, but you took notes. Very dirty and he seemed to reelly like it, which _doesn’t_ surprise you. She dumps Karkat on top of Eridan and curls back up and seems to be out again before Eridan even has a chance to yelp at the weight over his bruises. You thought Karkat was over the pheromones but he’s purring like a pro even with his eyelids barely cracked. Evidently he really has a thing for coldbloods because you think he’s trying to hump the slushpile.

These idiots. You really, _reelly_ , hope Tavros’s contributions win out.

*

The grubs hatch in an array of rainbow, very, very hungry rainbow.

They are each and _every one_ as sassy as Tavros, even, no, _especi-eelly_ , the fushias who keep trying to eat each other.

You should have been more specific.

**Author's Note:**

> And at some point there is enthusiastic fully consensual jolly rogering, and possibly an orgy.  
> Which is why I gave this a cautious M.  
> To whomever finds that of interest, let me know if you want to write it...
> 
> Nevermind, see chapter 2...


End file.
